A few days ago we watched the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead." Sounds enticing, eh? I didn't think so either. Just know that the guy who did the documentary is an Aussie, and has a great sense of dry British humor. Thus, the title. Well, the documentary is basically about a man who was very overweight and had some serious health problems as a result. He decided to reboot his system and his life, and give a new start to his body. How was he going to do that? He decided to do a juice fast (which I shall hereafter refer to as a "juice feast"). Basically, he travelled the US for 60 days, talking to people about their diet, effects of diet, and about his juice feast. For 60 days all he ingested was fresh squeezed vegetable and fruit juices for meals and snacks. Why juice? Because you get all the nutrient available immediately to your body without the need for digestion. Basically, it's super healthy, and you can get so much more nutrition than you can get through eating vegetables throughout the day. At the end of his feast, he had lost nearly 100 pounds, and had completely recovered from his health ailments (free of pills after over 9 years). He rebooted his life entirely, and went on to help others do the same thing. It was very inspiring. I have been thinking about doing a serious detox for my body. It's no secret that I'm overweight, but I have become increasingly concerned for my health over the past year. Not because anything awful health-wise is happening to me, but because the extra weight brings extra potential for problems. So after watching this documentary, I've decided to follow suit. Problem is, it's sort of hard. I'm used to eating all the time. It's sort of strange how much we become attached to our rituals of eating food, whether it's just eating healthy food in healthy amounts with the family at the dinner table, or whether its overeating on the wrong foods. I'm not sure I can go completely off of food altogether, so I'm making allowances for fruits and vegetables, along with the juice at every meal. So far, I've been at this juice feast for four days. I have not been a model student. But I figured I'd sort of ramp into it. Today, day four, has been a good day for one reason only: I decided to tell the world about my juice feast. The extra accountability really keeps me going. This a shot of our breakfast table. The kids were eating cereal. I was drinking my juice. It's kind of pretty, don't you think?
This is my first update:
Day 4
Weight loss: 4 lbs
Notes: ankle swelling going down. Didn't realize they were so swollen until I saw them shrunk down today. This is probably due to losing water weight. Had a bad headache for the first day and a half, probably due to detox from coffee. Feel like it was a good decision to "ramp in" instead of going cold-turkey. Not sure I could handle that headache for too long. Headache still lingers on and off, but not so bad. Was terribly cranky the first day - also probably from detox. Eating some fruit seems to help the crankiness. Maybe I was just hungry. Got seriously hungry today at lunch for the first time. The nice thing was not having the panicky feeling, because I didn't get shaky with hunger as usual (suspect low blood sugar?). That's a big change! Fruit and juice were enough, and kept me going all afternoon. I'm still amazed at how the body goes and goes on just vitamins and minerals in the juice. I didn't know it would be so easy to live on (mostly) juice.
And, because I can't do a post without pics of the kids, here are the girls enjoying their breakfast:
